thunderbolt

Two months ago, I called Promise's four-bay Pegasus J4 Thunderbolt storage device unconventional for its lack of RAID 5 support. Soon after that, at CES 2013, LaCie made the omission of RAID 5 a little more conventional with the introduction of the five-bay 5big Thunderbolt.

The new 5big Thunderbolt is the first multiple-bay storage device from LaCie that only supports RAID 0 or RAID 1. (Find out more about RAIDs here). In return it's a lot more affordable than a RAID 5-capable storage device of similar configuration.

The new 5big Thunderbolt is far from budget-friendly, however, with the … Read more

Earlier this month, Sumitomo Electric Industries was the first company to receive Thunderbolt certification from Intel, allowing it to start mass production of optical Thunderbolt cables.

Thunderbolt is a high-speed communications technology that Apple has used in its latest Mac systems to offer fast data transfer, not to mention new ways to expand Mac systems. While quite fast at 20Gbps (10Gbps bidirectional throughput), the sheer speed of the technology has posed a challenge.

When digital devices communicate, signal quality degrades over increased distance, whether via a wired or wireless connection. This can lead to data packets being lost and retransmitted, … Read more

Last week's release of the Matrox DS1 Thunderbolt Dock heralded the arrival of alternative docking solutions to Apple's Thunderbolt Display for Mac systems. Though useful for adding new and expanded capabilities to iMac and Mac Mini systems, the primary benefit of these solutions is that it lets laptop users convert their systems to desktop workstations.

Apple laptops support a "clamshell" mode of operation, where if you attach an external keyboard and monitor, then you can close the lid and tuck the unit away to a convenient location and still operate the computer. Unfortunately this usually requires you to at least connect a USB cable along with a monitor to your system, not to mention any audio cables, printers, external hard drives, and other peripherals you might use in your desktop environment, which is obviously inconvenient to deal with every time you move.… Read more

Apple has released three EFI firmware updates for some of its Mac systems that were released in 2012, which tackle a number of issues pertaining to sleep, Thunderbolt performance, and -- more relevantly to many users -- reliability of Wi-Fi connectivity.

The first update is a Wi-Fi update for all late 2012 Mac systems that improves compatibility with 5GHz-band Wi-Fi signals.

The update includes a new version of the AirPortBrcm4311.kext kernel extension. This update is specific for those running OS X 10.8.2 build 12C2034 (you can look this up by clicking the version number of OS X … Read more

Matrox has announced the release of its DS1 docking solution for Thunderbolt-equipped Mac systems, which comes in either a DVI or an HDMI option, and otherwise provides Ethernet, USB 2.0, and USB 3.0, as well as additional audio ports to Macs.

Thunderbolt is Apple's next-generation I/O technology that is built to be a long-lasting, multi-purpose port for its Mac lineup. The port offers a massive 10Gbps throughput and combines the protocols for both Displayport and PCI-express, allowing for not only external monitors but also a vast number of expansion possibilities, far beyond the capability of USB … Read more

Editors' note: This post is part of an ongoing series, for the other parts, check out the related stories. This post was updated on March 29, 2013, to add more information on backing up.

One of a storage device's most important roles, if not the most important, is to keep the information stored on it safe, especially from hardware failure. Redundancy and backup are the two popular types of data protection. They are not the same, however, and it's important to understand the differences between the two.

In a nutshell, redundancy in consumer-grade digital storage means using … Read more

Apple has released a new update for 2012 MacBook Pro systems that fixes problems with the handling of bus-powered Thunderbolt devices.

Thunderbolt is the next-generation I/O technology that Apple is implementing in its Mac systems, which allows very high-bandwidth communication between devices, and also allows for expansion of the PCIe (PCI Express) bus as well as carrying the DisplayPort signal for external monitors.

As Thunderbolt is relatively new, some bugs are bound to crop up in various implementations, and with the MacBook Pro systems produced in mid-2012 it's been found that some bus-powered Thunderbolt devices may not work … Read more

Editors' note: This post is part of an ongoing series. For the other parts, check out the related stories.

Now that you have some ideas about internal storage vs. memory after reading Part 1, here in Part 2 I'll talk about the two main types of external storage devices: direct-attached storage (DAS) and network-attached storage (NAS).

DAS and NAS share a few things in common. They both use one or more internal drives (hard drives or SSDs) on the inside, and they utilize the same methods to combine drives' storage space (when multiple drives are used). But before we … Read more

MacFixIt Answers is a feature in which I answer questions e-mailed in by our readers.

This week, readers wrote in with questions about hiding the menu bar in OS X, a "formatter failed" error when erasing hard drives, alternative configuration possibilities for Apple's Fusion Drive technology, and whether or not a Mini DisplayPort cable can be used for Thunderbolt connections. I welcome views from readers, so if you have any suggestions or alternative approaches to these problems, please post them in the comments!

Question: Hiding the menu bar in OS X MacFixIt reader Shawn asks: